In thinking back on what you ate today and yesterday, was the food nutrient dense, produced on fertile mineral rich soil? Did the farmer that raised the food care about your health, or did he/she mass produce it with little regard for what it would do for your health? Were the meat, eggs, or dairy products raised in a healthy environment and fed a nutrient dense, non-GMO diet on pasture? How much variety of different vegetables and fruits did you have? In evaluating your food and beverages for the last two days, on a scale of 0 to 10, how valuable do you think they were in contributed to your ultimate health and longevity? Or did they have a negative impact on your health?
I used to think that eating food was basically like putting gas in a car. I needed a certain amount of calories each day (just like a car needs a certain number of gallons of gas). If I ate too many calories I would get fat, and if I didn’t eat enough calories I would lose weight. The number of calories I ate was the main thing to be concerned about. How naive I was! What I didn’t realize is that unlike a car, our bodies need a wide variety of fuels because there is a wide variety of systems operating at the same time that each has special fuel needs. Because of the wide variety of fuel needs that the organs in our bodies need, it is important to eat a wide variety of foods, fruits and vegetables. An athlete that focuses on building his muscles will consume a large amount of protein and protein powders, but in the process he neglects the fuel that his brain needs and many of the other organs in his body.
Years ago, I had a great-aunt who went on a carrot diet to try to cure a health problem that she had. She juiced carrots and consumed a large quantity of carrots. I don’t know how long she was on the carrot diet, but it was long enough that her skin turned yellow. She decided she had eaten too many carrots! Carrots are an excellent source of certain "fuels" that our bodies need, but they are not a complete food source. The same is true of each variety of grain, fruit or vegetable.
The following is an interesting email that I received about a year ago from a lady in Australia about how certain foods look like the body parts that they supply specific "fuel" for. I have not validated everything that she shares about the different foods, but it gives an excellent illustration of the importance of eating a wide variety of foods.
"Hello, While reading my Bible, I asked God about sheep. I believe that God doesn’t just put things in the Bible for no reason & that everything has meaning that only He can reveal to a person who asks. I forgot about the sheep for awhile & about a week later I was looking something up on the internet (not sheep)& your website popped up and "sheep" caught my eye. I smiled because I knew it was God!!! I loved your articles. So thankyou!!! God has been showing me things too on health, food, environment etc. very similar to what you are finding. I just wondered if you knew about foods looking like body parts?
It’s been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals & fish…all before making a human. He made & provided what we’d need before we were born.
A sliced carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris & radiating lines look just like the human eye…& YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to & function of the eyes. Carrots get their orange colour from a plant chemical called beta-carotene, which reduces the risk of developing cataracts.
A tomato has 4 chambers & is red. The heart has 4 chambers & is red also. All of the research shows that tomatoes have fibre & are loaded with lycopene (a powerful antioxidant) which is indeed pure heart & blood food. They also have Vitamin K which regulates blood flow.
A walnut looks like a little brain, a left & right hemisphere, upper cerebrums & lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.
Kidney beans actually heal & help maintain kidney function & yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.
Celery, bok choy, rhubarb & many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium & these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
Avocados, eggplant & pears target the health and function of the womb & cervix of the female – they look just like these organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, & prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. The name avocado comes from an Aztec word meaning "testicle tree" because the rounded fruits grow in pairs. Avocados have vitamins & minerals that are necessary for reproduction such as Vitamin E. Diets lacking in vitamin E do not support the reproductive function. Vitamin E may also help the sperm penetrate the egg. Deficiency leads to a degeneration of testicular tissues.
Unfortunately I don’t have time to write too much more on this but I must say that what I discovered here is endless. Other examples that you can research yourself are as follows:
Grapes hang in a cluster & look like the shape of the heart. Individual grapes look like a blood cell.
Lungs are made up of branches – bunches of grapes (vine).
Eyes are fish shape (Vitamin A)
Sweet potato looks like the pancreas.
Grapefruits, oranges & other citrus fruits look like mammary glands of the female when the fruit is sliced.
Onions when sliced look like body cells.
Broccoli – green tips on the head look like hundreds of cancer cells.
Pumpkin and squash seeds look just like the prostate gland.
Ginger looks like the stomach.
Raw cheese looks like internal structure of bones.
Figs correspond to male reproductive organs and they hang in twos when they grow.
Olives look like ovaries.
Beetroot are good for blood production and look like blood.
Going away from food I’ll tell you something about elephants that are interesting too. There are Indian elephants and there are African elephants. Indian elephants have ears in the shape of the continent of India and African elephants have ears in the shape of the continent Africa.
God’s insights are endless and amazing. What an amazing Creator we have!!!
Karen
After reading Karen’s email, I had to think of this verse in the Bible that mentioned several foods that resemble body parts: "Butter of kine, and milk of sheep, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, with the fat of kidneys of wheat; and thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape. "(Deuteronomy 32:14) I am not sure how the oil in wheat germ affects the kidneys, but I did find that to clear the kidneys of kidney stones, one method is to take olive oil or coconut oil along with lemon juice. It appears that oil is important to keep the kidney functioning properly. Most wheat consumed in America today has the oil and the wheat germ removed, even in so-called "whole wheat" products. People do not get the "fat of the kidneys" of the wheat to help their own kidneys.
The correlation between blood and grape juice in the above verse is more than just looks. The Mayo Clinic has an interesting article on the value of grape juice for our blood in which they say:
"Recent studies have suggested that red and purple grape juices may provide some of the same heart benefits of red wine, including:
- Reducing the risk of blood clots
- Reducing low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or "bad") cholesterol
- Preventing damage to blood vessels in your heart
- Helping maintain a healthy blood pressure
Both red wine and grape juice also contain antioxidants called flavonoids, which have been shown to increase your high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or "good") cholesterol and lower your risk of clogged arteries (atherosclerosis), and may help lower blood pressure."
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/food-and-nutrition/AN00576
The take home message for each of us for health and longevity, is to eat foods that are as nutrient dense as we can find and to eat as wide a variety of foods as we can.